As I write this post, I have Netflix’s original series King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch paused on my television. The reason why I am watching this show is because it is associated with an issue I am interested in investigating-the issue of private collections and auction companies in the acquisition of historical artifacts. For those that do not know, the King of Collectibles is a reality show dedicated to following the business dealings and exploits of a leading auction house, Goldin Auctions. The reality series shows viewers the auction house’s acquisition of rare collectibles ranging from sports memorabilia to pokemon cards to anything that is rare and worth thousands to millions of dollars. It is often unbelievable what Goldin’s employees come across and even more unbelievable just how much nameless millionaire buyers will pay to acquire what are without a doubt one of a kind historical items. 

In season two of the reality series, Ken Goldin, the founder and CEO of Goldin Auctions, knows that his company is the leader in the selling and acquisition of sports memorabilia but has professed that it is not enough. Goldin also wants his company to be a leader in the acquisition and selling of historical documents and artifacts. Goldin recently hired a new “chief authenticator”, John Reznikoff, to demonstrate the authentication of historical documents, art, technology and other items that appear in the series. Now, this is where the show kind of loses me as a general viewer and turns me into a student of ethics, history and the digital public humanities. 

The King of Collectibles is far from the first reality series to exemplify the purchase and selling of historical items; other shows like American Pickers, and Pawnstars have made it a central part of their business model and storylines. But, Goldin has a more specific clientele that is encompassed by mostly unnamed millionaires. The idea of acquiring and selling historical artifacts to this type of clientele who will then most likely keep the items stocked in a personal collection for no one else to see for years to come makes me want to borrow one of Indiana Jones’ most famous lines, “It belongs in a museum!” 

 I myself am a collector and come from a family of collectors and partake in the purchase of affordable antiques at small family owned shops or booths in outlets in historic downtowns. I am also not venturing to seek out items owned by Thomas Jefferson or Malcolm X. I feel like historical items that contribute to a nation’s history or even to world history should be accessible to the greater public. This doesn’t mean that it has to be on view at a museum but it can be available digitally for people to see and utilize for research, education or their own interest. On the other hand, maybe if I did have a million dollars I would spend it on something of grand importance in the hopes of preserving it. Perhaps that could be the true goal of these private collectors instead of the items serving solely as a purchase to hide money laundering? 

I feel as though this subject matter only brings up more questions related to ethics, historical preservation and shared historical authority. In his reality series, Goldin does not seem to be someone who is entirely without morals but he could be playing it up for the cameras. That said, I would be curious to see if his company is developing a policy on the acquisition of historical artifacts and their own standards related to the type of client they would wish to purchase the items. 

My project idea is to create an introductory historical thinking activity for middle school students. The project is focused on teaching students how to contextualize, source, corroborate and close read. The project also serves as a tool teachers can use and implement in their own classes. I have created a teacher’s guide and most of my student interactive exhibits. Each exhibit serves as a lesson for historical thinking. I have broken the exhibits into steps and have incorporated activities students can complete.

Graphic organizers are used often in order to serve as a Universal Design for learning and a differentiation tool.

To make my project friendlier to students, I have included videos and guiding images like Bitmojis to provide further direction on the modules and assignments.

I completed my fourth exhibit related to historical context. I decided to have students identify the context for two lunch boxes that can also be used for a future activity on corroboration. The two lunch boxes are Peanuts by Shulz and Wee Pals Kid Power. I selected these two lunch boxes since Peanuts creator Charles Shulz and Wee Pals creator Morrie Turner were contemporaries and colleagues. Wee Pals was inspired by Peanuts and was created in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement.

I feel as though there are a lot of things students can dig into for historical context with these two artifacts. In my context exhibit, I also provided oral history interviews with Shulz and Turner so students can hear from the cartoonists themselves about the significance of their creation. They also serve as additional multimedia primary sources students can use to eventually answer the compelling question.

I still need to complete the rest of my exhibits. These exhibits are related to corroboration, empathy, students answering the compelling question and students sharing and reflecting on the activity. I also need to create instructional videos for teachers and students in order to explain how to go through the site.  

I am going to resolve these challenges by just dedicating time to completing the exhibits this week and searching through my district’s resource to reapply them to my exhibits.

Reflection:

It was helpful to see what previous students accomplished with their digital projects. I had issues determining my learning activity’s layout  and the types of activities I could incorporate. I saw that previous students implemented google forms as a means to engage audiences with their site’s content. I played around with embedding google slides on my OMEKA site but struggled with the Google Drive Omeka plug-in. I installed it but the embedded Google Slides link does not fit in with the overall structure of the site. I then decided to install the PDF embed plug-in to upload PDFs to my site and make them accessible to site visitors for easy download. I also played around with a digital technique I learned during Covid-19 that allows me to embed links to sites that enable users to make an automatic copy of google slides, docs and sheets. Listening to other students’ digital projects also helped me see the usefulness in creating a teacher’s guide. Since I made my teacher’s guide I was able to see exactly what I want teachers and students to be able to accomplish with my project. Additionally, I saw that a popular technique amongst these digital projects was the usefulness in posing historical thinking questions to users as a means of inquiry based learning. 

In terms of my project, I was able to make some developments with the layout to solidify my original ideas. 

To make it clear that my site is multipurpose in its function to educate, I developed pages for a teacher’s guide and student interactive exhibits. The teacher’s guide will serve as an open letter to teachers to explain the site’s educational purpose and the designed historical thinking activity. In the teacher’s guide, I included a Schoology Access Request Form so educators can request the Schoology version of the historical thinking activity that teacher’s can easily implement on the Schoology class pages. I was able to embed my OMEKA site into a Schoology assignment for students to gain easy access to it. The Teacher’s guide also establishes the activity’s learning objectives and the disciplinary literacy standards. The teacher’s guide is not yet complete as I would like to include an instructional video that goes over the site’s functionality. 

For my student interactive exhibits, I decided to separate the historical learning activity into interrelated steps. The steps correlate with a historical thinking skill. As of this moment, there are a total of 8 steps. 

The steps serve as lessons on a specific topic/historical thinking skill. In step 1, I included teaching items from Stanford’s Digital Inquiry Group (DIG). DIG’s historical thinking tools have been useful in my own teaching so I decided to feature them on my site in order to define terms like corroboration, sourcing, close reading and contextualization. I am also embedding graphic organizers in my learning activity to serve as worksheets that can be completed as part of the lesson. Students and teachers can access these worksheets as a PDF or google doc. I installed plug-ins like PDF Embed to make documents available to site visitors. These worksheets are included in a collection titled “Educational Resources” for organizational purposes. 

Next Steps:

I need to complete the written instructions for steps 4-8. I need to select and embed the worksheets I will be utilizing for steps 4-8. I need to create instructional videos that will guide users through the historical learning activity. 

I have simplified my navigation settings on my omeka site to make navigation easier and less confusing for my target audience of 8th graders. It was originally cluttered with “unusable” navigation pages that were great in theory but did not serve a useful purpose. I have started to storyboard the instructional pages for my learning activity and I have begun to draft the descriptions I will provide. I am revisiting my county’s curriculum framework in order to make sure I am hitting the necessary indicators and following the necessary foundation for teaching and learning in history. The primary sources I will use will be the  lunchboxes I have photographed on the site. My next steps and challenges will include testing to see if I can embed Omeka pages in the Schoology learning management system and building the pages for my site. Although I have relied on my own primary sources for historical analysis, I am depending on articles from our modules to find the best techniques for teaching history especially in relation to historical inquiry and analysis. I am continuing to conduct research on this very issue. The most useful articles for my site will be our most recent module on photography since photo analysis will need to be conducted on my site. I have also utilized a textbook from my college historical methods course called “The Methods and Skills of History: A Practical Guide” to get further ideas on instructional methods.

An image I am using in my final project will be a Marvel Secret Wars lunchbox. Marvel comics, film, and television shows are popular amongst students and will seem pretty relevant for them to discuss and conduct a photo analysis. I will help my students conduct an analysis by asking questions related to:

What do you see?  What is included? Who might have purchased this box? How does this box compare to items you have in your possession?

I will also help my students conduct an analysis by modeling and guiding them through the activity.

I do not currently have any questions on developing my final project.

Digital media and digital tools can be used to engage 8th grade students with historical content. Digital media can increase student engagement in history and historical thinking by serving as a Universal Design for Learning. Universal Designs for Learning refer to teaching tools that provide students with multiple means for engagement, content representation, as well as action and expression.  

This is what is included in Universal Designs for Learning:

Middle schoolers are much more receptive to activities that are more interactive and visually stimulating. Carl Becker noted the influence of popular media of the 1930s transforming traditional history and popular media continues to do so in the contemporary setting. Students groan at the sight of textbooks as opposed to digital media that provide diverse opportunities for interacting with and learning content. These opportunities can include things like video games, podcasts, videos, films, music, discussion boards and so on. Students with special needs and English Language Learners can especially benefit from the UDLs digital media provides. 

My proposed learning activity revolves around an Omeka site I built related to retro lunchboxes. My goal is to create a historical thinking introductory activity that students can complete to review historical concepts shown throughout the site. The digital component of the activity will potentially rely on the creation of tutorial pages that will guide students on how to conduct a historical investigation of the lunchboxes. As this will be the first time students are interacting with a site like this, students will have to follow the instructor through guided practice in the examination of photos and annotations. I may also need to provide video tutorials for students who need extra practice with the act of historical investigation. With these changes and realizations, I have to consider in what ways I can blend/embed an Omeka site into the students’ traditional learning management system of Schoology to make the site easily accessible. Students are used to using Schoology and it is the primary platform I use to give instruction materials and assignments. I will have to experiment to see if there is a way in which I can connect the two platforms.

The collection, contextualization and the interpretation of historical information are elements of historical thinking that have remained at the heart of historical teaching. The collection of historical information refers to the gathering and development of historical knowledge. The American Historical Association (AHA) recognizes that the retention of historical information is important but that it should not be the overall focus of history learning. The evolving standards of the AHA agree that historical knowledge should be built in order to “discern context.” 

Unfortunately, there is a general misunderstanding that history is stagnate and is only about fact based retention due to standardized testing. For years, standardized testing has relied on assessing the memorization of dates, names, and events in place of in depth historical inquiry. The building of historical knowledge is only a small aspect of  historical teaching. Contextualization and interpretation serve much larger roles in the understanding of history. The AHA’s other core competencies reflect the elements of contextualization and interpretation. Other scholars such as Weinberg, Kelly, Ayers, and Robinson agree that disciplinary skills like contextualization and interpretation are much more essential in history learning. These two skills allow students to develop and use historical methods, historical arguments, and historical perspective. 

Historians like Carl Becker have responded to technological change in the 20th century by encouraging the expansion of the history profession to the “everyman” or in other words people outside of academia. Becker understood that traditional representations of history were competing against “radio shows, newspaper headlines and suit pockets” (p.508). Edward L. Ayers agrees with Becker. Ayers acknowledges that “ambient history” created with artificial memory has increased with digital media. Online forums, genealogy, documentary, video games, and podcasts have revolutionized representations of the past. In the case of the 21st century, historians like Alison Robinson responded to events like Covid-19 by having her students carry on with their history learning through digital media. In reaction to the pandemic, Robinson had her students create a digital history project using WordPress as an online exhibit platform. Robinson’s project served as an extension of the instruction her students experienced in class. The students had to conduct original historical research using material culture with readings, class discussions, museum visits, and object handling experience. They then had to combine and adapt their historical knowledge with the making of a digital exhibit where they had to consider a target audience and share their research and digital creations. 

External expectations associated with national politics and educational standards have constrained the teaching and learning of history. National politics has placed history at the center of national debates. Heated discussions occur as a means of determining what type of history should be taught in schools. Standardized tests also change the way history is taught by placing an emphasis on multiple choice questions that require the retention of facts as opposed to in depth historical interpretations. The results of these standardized tests also cause alarm on the national landscape and push for more reforms in history education. Consequently, educational standards are developed to reflect the political trends. Questions on whether history should tell the “truth”, be patriotic, or recite the facts are debated. Textbooks, the primary teaching tool of many history teachers, are created to reflect the educational standards as well as the politics of the time. 

The digital might disrupt these constraints by making history more engaging for students. The digital can also allow students to elevate their learning through digital projects. Digital technology such as mobile applications, podcasts, and video games can enhance historical understanding.  Just like with Robinson’s students, digital media can foster enriched learning activities that call for students to expand on their built historical knowledge and utilize their skills of contextualization and interpretation.

In its more simplistic form, historical thinking can be defined as the reading, analysis and writing that is necessary to understand the past. It is a process that is easier to define than it is to demonstrate as students in both k-12 education and higher education struggle to conduct the action of historical thinking. As a result, universities have made moves to close these gaps amongst their students by training their faculty in refined pedagogical approaches. These refined pedagogical approaches aim to teach students concepts such as crossing the historian’s threshold and the evaluation of evidence. In a similar vein, I have my own concerns related to my 8th grade students and their struggles to think like historians. Throughout this course, I hope to find answers to the following questions in order to improve historical thinking amongst my students: 

1. How can I teach my students historical thinking techniques that can compensate for any skills that they may lack? 
2. How can I best plan for collaborative learning opportunities that teach historical thinking?
3. How can I make historical thinking relevant for my students?

Tentative Answer for Question 1: It is possible that I can utilize principles from the theory of pedagogy known as Decoding the Disciplines. Elon University employs a program called Decoding the Disciplines as a model for helping experts and their students locate issues in “crucial operations” that experts and students have in a particular discipline. Indiana University’s Joan Middendorf has explained that Decoding the Disciplines is an evolved theory of pedagogy that allows experts to break down their own automatic complicated thinking/expertise to students who have difficulty comprehending the task the expert has accomplished. Students can have difficulty understanding the actions an expert carries out due to the fact that a student is unfamiliar with a particular discipline. That being said, it is possible for a student to overcome this misunderstanding. According to Elon University’s Dr. Katie King, “disciplines have at their perimeter complex ideas that can be difficult to someone new to the principle but once they are grasped, they can broaden and deepen a student’s understanding of the discipline” therefore crossing the threshold of understanding. I can use Decoding the Disciplines to my advantage as I can use it as means to pause and reflect on the misconceptions students have about a concept that may come easily to me. Modeling, motivation check-ins, and sharing are also important aspects of teaching and learning that my students can benefit from in their understanding of historical thinking. 

Tentative Answer for Question 2: According to the expert in Thinking about Historical Thinking Decoding the Discipline, planning should not be an issue as long as good results are achieved. Although I can understand the idea behind this notion, planning for six different classes with a total of 30 students is exhausting. Admittingly, as stated by  Sam Wineburg, Mark Smith, and Joel Breakstone, “the structure of the school day restricts collaboration to brief meetings taken up by administrative matters, leaving scant time for teachers to articulate goals for student learning.”  However, in spite of my pragmatism, I do understand the value of collaborative learning. As stated, students are more likely to remember concepts from class if they carry out their learning themselves or discuss it with their classmates. Skills associated with historical thinking include contextualization, corroboration, sourcing, and close reading. Since students continue to struggle with these concepts, they can learn from a more proficient classmate who is willing to model a skill in the completion of primary source analysis. 

Tentative Answer for Question 3: Stéphane Lévesque believes “significant events of the late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first century force citizens to rethink their traditional relationships with the past.” From this, it is evident that students themselves must reevaluate their own understandings of the past in order to establish meaning and relevance. Lévesque encourages teachers to use contemporary sources for analysis in order to mimic the same mental activities that are needed to interpret the past. Consequently, students can realize that these same skills used to interpret historical evidence are relevant for understanding contemporary events and activities. As a potential solution, I can begin to use alternative resources like Tiktok videos, YouTube and Snapchat to help students see the relevance of historical thinking.